The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art. Modern fuel systems in vehicles, such as automobiles, may employ an electronic returnless fuel system (“ERFS”) to deliver fuel to an engine. Regarding such electronic returnless fuel systems, only a fuel supply line from a fuel tank to an engine is utilized; therefore, no return fuel line from the engine to the fuel tank is necessary. As a result of such a configuration, in an ERFS only the exact volume of fuel required by an engine is delivered to the engine, regardless of the varying degree of the volume of fuel required by the engine.
While current electronic returnless fuel systems have generally proven to be satisfactory for their applications, each is associated with its share of limitations. One limitation of current ERFS is their inability to supply liquid fuel to an engine in a volume and at a pressure that meets or exceeds engine demand. Another limitation is the general inability of current ERFS systems to accept more than one fuel pump within a fuel pump module while utilizing only a single check valve within the fuel pump module. Another limitation is that current ERFS fuel pump module jet pumps are not configured to operate using filtered fuel from a separate area of the fuel pump module fuel filter, and because of this limitation, jet pump interference with the pressurized fuel flowing to the engine during pump on and off conditions is possible. Still yet another limitation is that with current ERFS, because jet pumps begin functioning when the pressure regulator permits fuel to flow to the jet pumps when the fuel pressure reaches a set amount to open the regulator, during high fuel demand situations, such as wide open throttle, the fuel pressure may not permit the regulator to open and begin jet pump operation.
What is needed then is a device that does not suffer from the above limitations. This, in turn, will provide a device that utilizes a check valve between a fuel module fuel filter and a fuel pressure relief regulator.